Not Any Closer to Getting the Answer

My recent inquiry into the question of why we are here has brought a large number of responses. Many, as might be expected, are remonstrations against what is perceived as my disbelief. Many others quote the myth of Genesis as the answer, and urge me to read the Bible. Others have sent me pamphlets quoting Eastern mystics in whose philosophies the answer presumably lies.

Easier to handle than most of the arguments against my philosophy are the ones against my grammar. I had written, “I keep wondering why, if God is infallible, did we turn out so bad?”

“Oops!” writes Dr. Harry A. Goodman (and others). “I believe the correct word is ‘badly,’ not ‘bad.’ ”

The usage panel in Harper’s Dictionary of Contemporary Usage voted 74% to 24% against the use of “badly” as in “I feel badly.”

“Feeling badly,” commented Isaac Asimov, “is the mark of a dirty old man.”

Robert Chrichton said, “I say, ‘I feel bad.’ You don’t say, ‘I feel goodly, do you?’ ”

Burton Rouche said, “ ‘Feel badly’ is a dainty-ism used by people who think ‘bad’ is too blunt and crude.”

Several readers question my quoting Albert Einstein as saying “God does not play dice with the world.”

“Shouldn’t that be ‘universe,’ not ‘world?’ ” asks one.

It seems to me Einstein might have said “universe,” since the universe was his plaything. However, I looked it up in Bartlett’s, which quoted the old wizard as saying “world.”

Several readers note that Einstein was a lifelong atheist, and wouldn’t have used the word God anyway.

In that connection, I have an interesting correspondence between Einstein and Guy H. Raner Jr., a wartime ensign.

Raner wrote Einstein, recalling a letter Einstein had sent him in 1945. “At that time I was aboard the U.S. Navy carrier Bougainville and had written you regarding some statements made by a merchant marine officer to the effect that a Jesuit priest had brought you around to a belief in God . . .

“You replied, ‘I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been, an atheist. It is always misleading to use anthropomorphical concepts in dealing with things outside the human sphere--childish analogies. We have to admire in humility the beautiful harmony of the structure of this world--as far as we can grasp it. And that is all.’ ”

Einstein spent his life trying to grasp it, and never quite did. He was still grappling with his unified field theory when he ceased to be. So Einstein, like me, never quite grasped the universal truth.

Jynny Retzinger takes issue with my belief that the human species has turned out bad. “I disagree,” she writes. “You are too influenced by the news media that look for sensationalism! I don’t believe it. There are still eight million good ones (out of nine million in L.A. County).”

She’s probably right. How many of the hundred million women in America would cut off their husbands’ penises, even when provoked? That good people outnumber bad people there is no doubt. But why do we have bad people at all? Would the world be dull without them?

Fred Wood of Balboa Island recalls a verse that he says was a favorite of the late Richard Feynman, the brilliant Caltech physicist.

I wonder why I wonder why, I wonder why I wonder.

I was a great admirer of Feynman. There is a story that he used to take a break from the classroom and go to a topless bar. I could identify with that, if not with his cosmic theories.

I had always wanted to meet Feynman. One night, at a costume party in the home of Caltech scientist Al Hibbs, I had the chance. My wife pointed to a man sitting in a window seat. He wore a long white robe and had a long white beard--false, of course.

My wife said, “That’s Richard Feynman. I think he’s Moses.”

I went over to the window seat and confronted the man. “Are you Moses?”

“No,” he said, “I’m God.”

I went over to Hibbs and told him that Feynman had said he was God.

“Oh,” said Hibbs. “We’ve known that all along.”

Maybe he was.

So here I am. No closer to knowing why we are here.

I wonder why I wonder.

Maxwell White of Ventura says, “Oh, come on, Jack. Dear Gertrude Stein gave us the answer. ‘There is no answer.’ ”

He encloses a “Hagar the Horrible” cartoon in which Hagar says, “A man must wrestle with many questions. Who am I? Why am I here? What’s it all about? Why me? Do we have any beer?”

Maybe that’s what Feynman was seeking at the topless bar. A beer.